China and Mongolia

On flying into Beijing Mike and I were joined by my Mum who had decided to meet up with us for our Trans Mongolian adventure!

We had booked an organised tour through Intrepid Travel and were due to travel by train through China, Mongolia and Russia for 20 days. We were however a day early and were fortrunate enough to meet up with our old travel buddies from Tibet; Suz and Dave. We had a fantastic day enjoying the Summer Palace in Beijing with 'The Overlanders' http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/overlanders/before heading off to meet the rest of our new tour group.

Our group made up of 12 travellers from Canada, Portugal and the majority from Australia were led by our intrepid and fearless leader Natalia from Kygastan alias 'The Big Bad Wolf'.

We started with 2 full days in around Beijing exploring the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. Two of the highlights of our stay there were the street markets and the acrobats show that I would highly recommend to anyone visting.

We then jumped aboard our first train to cross into Mongolia encompassing two days and 1 night. My mum celebrated her Birthday that first day and we settled into beer, cards and charades. Soon to become experts at all three!!

Mongolia provided a whole different experience! The Gobi Desert; watch out for the dinosaurs! Ger tents, horseback riding and fantastic national parks. The countries specialty is 'Mare's Milk' which, you guessed it, is made from the milk of mares. It can be alcoholic or non alcoholic; either way it tastes awful! Here you can see locals selling it at the train station stop.

One moment I will never forget is galloping along on horseback beside Mike with my mum who had only been on a horse once ever before not far behind us. Camels and yaks, horsemen with hats!

Next it was on to the Russian border for even more spectacular scenery and surprises.